Portable media devices once solely used for playing back audio media such as MP3 files have advanced to the point where more recent portable media players have become adept at storing and displaying still images. In some cases, video can be downloaded and played back at a user's discretion. One area, however, that has lagged is the ability for portable media devices to provide a user with the ability to read relatively large amounts of text, such as that found in a book, magazine, and so on in an environment that provides a true book like experience. In an attempt to address this problem, various electronic books (also referred to as e-books) have been designed specifically for reading documents converted to electronic form. Many of these recently developed e-books utilize bi-stable display technologies (such as e-ink, e-paper, and so on) that do not require power to maintain an image on the screen. E-paper is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity while still allowing the image to be changed later.
Unfortunately, e-paper technologies have a very low refresh rate (on the order of about one second) compared with other low-power display technologies, such as liquid crystal displays (LCD). This slow refresh rate can severely and adversely impact user's overall reading experience. For example, once the user has finished reading a page of a document, the page must be refreshed in order to present another page of the document. The need to refresh in order to view a new page can be frustrating as it requires the reader to stop and wait for the new page to come into view.
Therefore, what is desired is a system, method, and apparatus for providing a user with an easy to operate portable device that can be configured as a electronic book that can provide the user with a true book like reading experience.